As for the "divorce[ing]" President Reagan from GW Bush, I was offended by quite the opposite. I think they tried to LINK their policies, especially Fineman. And that's the absurdity. As I said on here last week before Reagan died, GW Bush couldn't clean Reagan's boots. I really resent linking them.
Answer: I see a distinction between Reagan and GW Bush's talking about God and the Clinton and Carter rhetoric. What is the distinction? Well, right off, I never beleived that Clinton was sincere about anything, much less religion, so I really have to try to recall back to Carter to make this meaningful to you.
Carter struck me as emasculated by his religion and his politics. His mention of religion never made an impression on me and the memory is faint. I suppose I saw it as a southern thing that he did a lot of, but did not particularly bother me as much as his cultural and politicla direction bothered me. I guess you'd have to specify what bothered you about carter's religiosity.
Re: Reagan and Bush (GW) and religion, I value most the distinction between good and bad and all their purpose placed within a cultural context with images adn literature I am familiar with and which make sense to me. I am not a church -goer but don't mind most people who speak of hteir christian or jewish faith. I found W and Reagan as most like those protestant men who were presidents at our country's founding. They were/ are strong and forceful with that vigor harnessed within a vision of the good I can affirm. Read the evil empire sppech which I posted in its entirety above. W was speaking to evangelicals and that's not me [call me a philosophically oriented spiritual person who is was a Catholic inhis youth but has not practiced the religion since his teens. ]
I sent the text to some jewish friends of mine and I tried to read it to see how they might view and if they would be put off by the evangelical setting and the scriptural references. Well, the OT references should not offend Jewish sensibilities, obviously, and the good --evil distinction as the foundation of freedom --slavery teleology strikes me as just right. The key to me appears to be getting the evangelicals to be christian enough not to try and force their "let me save you" stuff down your throat. I am comfortable with their entire liturgy, but just want to make sure they leave alone people who do not want to participate. [The guy who was boorish with the ambrose figure earlier inthis post comes to mind] The :"christian right" would be affirmed by me --so long as they proved they knew what is entailed by tolerance of non-believers and other believers. That's me who is not afraid of them because I know what I am about. They really make other people feel that they are creepy once they get going with that "I got to save you, brother routine".
All this means I am not bothered at all by Reagan and Bush's references to their faith and good and bad.